Attention poetry mavens: any suggestions for good contemporary poets (either in general or particular collections)? Have sudden appetite but very little idea where to start. Any advice welcome!
I’ve kept a diary since I was twelve. While I composed nearly illegible autobiographical scratchings in my first years of primary school at my teachers’ request, it wasn’t until I was on the brink of becoming a teenager that I felt I needed a more permanent arrangement. I suspect it had to do with reading The Diary of Anne Frank. My diary’s function has changed over the years – it once had a name (having discovered that Zoe was the Greek word for life, I thought my choice extremely clever), and I used to like my diaries in a variety of shapes and sizes, spangled with glitter, ruled with wide lines, shackled with locks and keys. For at least eight years my diary was the space in which to vent my feelings, and offered some form of therapeutic comfort. This meant it was largely about boys and is, as a result, very tedious to reread. But while the function of my journal has changed, each volume has been a solution to the manic desire to scribble. As I discovered reading Anne Frank, each e…
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I'm not sure if you've already read some of their work. But here are a few of my favourite poems, by my favourite contemporary poets.
Marginalia, by Billy Collins : http://www.billy-collins.com/2005/06/marginalia.html
Farewell, by Agha Shahid Ali :
http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.in/2002/12/farewell-agha-shahid-ali.html
Leaving and Leaving You, by Sophie Hannah :
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/leaving-and-leaving-you/
- Shruti
http://www.stpetershigh.org.uk/DEPARTMENTS/ENGLISH_DEPT/PRUSH/KS4_Resources/Freshwater/Motion_Freshwaterstuff/Freshwater.html
Daniel Berrigan - Selected & New Poems - the well known social activist and Jesuit priest, who served time in jail for such activities as burning draft records and pouring blood on nuclear warheads. I recently discovered this book in a small used book store (the best kind) in Sandpoint, Idaho and have been consistently floored by his poems, ranging from his stark early religious imagery to his final moving series about his friend Thomas Merton.
Christian Wiman - Every Riven Thing - I came across this amazing poet - also the editor of Poetry magazine - after reading his essay about his incurable disease in Image magazine.
Dana Gioia - Pity the Beautiful
Richard Skelton - ok, this guy is great, especially if you love the uk countryside - check his web site Corbal Stone Press to get an idea of his work. I first came across his work in a musical context via a cover story in The Wire music magazine - in an attempt to confront his grief over the early death of his first wife, he immersed himself in the countryside and wrote an incredible series of poems and prose fragments, in addition to composing sad drones which he recorded in the open moors. Can't rave enough...